Son of the Empire
by K.S. Reynard
Summary: On the night of tyranny's last breath, the loss of all but life itself leads to a new beginning for a fallen kingdom's only heir. (Submission for SS one-shot contest)


**Son of the Empire**

From the lavish study inside his family's mansion on the desert world of Tehraia, Panther watched as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon in the distance, below the tops of buildings that kept the vast expanses of desert sand hidden from view. In the silence, his thoughts alternated between the two events that threatened to bring his life as he knew it to an end. The uprising that had engulfed the continent under his father's control had become much more than a simple insurrection, which now threatened the very survival of the dictatorship that he was due to inherit thanks to an assassin's bullet that managed to find his father's chest during a speech given earlier that day.

For minutes on end, the black feline stared out the ornate window that marked the back of the study until the sun vanished from sight and left the city under the cover of darkness. The entire metropolis waited in silence, as if it knew what was to transpire in the coming hours. A marked anxiety pervaded the air, and nothing Panther did to alleviate it had any effect. He knew better than anyone that the fate of his family's kingdom hung in the balance. The rebel forces had already taken all but one of the continent's major societal centers, and they had their eyes set on Chivacha – the center of government and the city that Panther resided in.

All military estimates suggested that the rebel forces, along with the mercenaries who fought for their cause, would begin their final attack on the city by midnight at the latest. Glancing at the digital clock on top of a nearby bookshelf, Panther noted the time '2145' and brought his hands to his head. The glare of a dirty yellow streetlight outside the window illuminated a gold badge on his military uniform, revealing his rank as a wing commander in the Western Tehraian air and space force. Due to his father's ailing state, he had been temporarily relieved of his duties; but he knew better than anyone else that once the rebels launched their attack on the city, he would be expected to take part in the defense.

As he lowered his head to the table, a knock came at his door. Without looking up, he asked, "Who's there?"

"It's Latifa," a strong, feminine voice replied. "Your father needs to see you immediately. He doesn't have much longer to live."

Groaning, Panther rose to his feet and shoved his chair in. _"How could he die now, of all times? We need him more than ever!"_

He stepped towards the door and opened it to reveal a shapely lioness, dressed in a black officer's uniform that matched the one that he wore. Upon seeing Panther – her commanding officer – Latifa acknowledged him and said, "There's an armored motorcade ready outside that will take us to the hospital where you're father's being kept. I know it'll be difficult, but after you say goodbye to him, General Zinvor needs you to report to the air base ASAP. You're the best pilot we have, Panther. We really need you this time."

Panther shook his head and stepped out of the room. Walking beside Latifa towards the mansion's main entry door, he explained, "I don't think I can do that. I'm my father's only heir, and he'll have me replace him as dictator the instant he dies."

Suggesting that she knew something that he did not, Latifa replied, "Don't assume anything. These are extreme circumstances. Do you really want to have to be the man responsible for overseeing our final line of defense?"

"No."

"I don't think your father thinks that you'd want that, either."

Unease gripped Panther as he opened the mansion's front door and laid eyes on three armored vehicles in front of the fountain that stood in the center of the outdoor courtyard. Two APCs flanked the Caroso family's bombproof limousine, which Panther moved towards. An iguana in a uniform similar to Panther's opened the rear door for him and Latifa, who slid into the back seat with him. The door closed seconds later. Then, the trio of vehicles accelerated through of the stately manor's main gate.

The fact that two APCs had been provided for his quick trip to the hospital warned him about the increasingly volatile state of affairs inside the city. Although he tried to deny it, he knew that many of the people who lived in the city sided with the rebels and would take up arms against him and his father's dictatorship if they were given any opportunity to do so.

As the limousine rounded a corner, Latifa commented, "It just keeps getting worse. Even with the best security forces in the entire Continental Empire, we're going to be outnumbered on the ground. Our fighters should have the advantage in the air, so it'll be up to us to give the ground forces a fighting chance."

Panther glanced at the lioness out of the corner of his eye. "Who are we up against in the sky?"

"Mostly mercenaries," Latifa replied. "We've definitely got better pilots and equipment than they do; and this time, we'll be the desperate ones."

" _Mercenaries,"_ Panther scoffed. _"They'll never understand what it means to fight for anything worthwhile. They'd tear down my family's work for nothing more than money, and they'd be proud to be the ones to do it, too. Scum – all of them."_

Latifa's expression suggested that she had inferred Panther's thoughts from his surly expression. "I know – it makes me angry, too. Let's channel that anger and use it to take those bastards down."

Seven tense minutes passed until the limousine pulled up to the hospital where Panther's father awaited his death. The security detail riding in the front of the car opened the door for Panther and Latifa, who climbed out and set foot on the pavement underneath the stone overhang that stood in front of the hospital's main doors. Panther thanked the officer, then walked through the sliding glass doors into the building. Not knowing the location of his father's room, he motioned for Latifa to lead him to it.

All the while, he cursed himself for not visiting his father sooner. Although he would not have been able to visit him under normal circumstances, he still felt guilty about waiting until the final hours of his life to pay his last regards when he could have done so earlier. He attempted to excuse himself based on his fears of the coming city defense, but he knew that he had already shown his father a tremendous lack of respect.

He let out a sigh when Latifa stopped in an anteroom with four different elevators and pressed the up button on one to his right. The doors slid open immediately, and the two felines stepped in. As the elevator groaned into action, Latifa turned to Panther and whispered, "I know it's going to be tough for you, but try not to let your father's death get to you. Yes – it's impossible, but we need you at your best when the rebels start their attack."

Panther grumbled and nodded his head in reply.

The elevator came to a stop on the hospital's fourth floor. Resuming her lead, Latifa stepped into the white, wood-trimmed hallway outside and motioned towards a door at the end of the corridor. Two armed guards – one a short male fox and the other a taller fennec – stood at the entrance to the dictator's room, but they moved aside when they recognized Panther. Turning to face the black feline, Latifa leaned against the wall and said, "Go ahead – I'll be waiting for you when you're finished. The car will still be waiting outside when we leave this hospital for the base."

"Thank you," Panther replied.

Giving each of the two guards a subtle nod, he opened the door at the end of the hall and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him, then moved towards the only bed in the room and locked eyes with his father, who had remained silent up until that point. The older cat's yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness of the room, but the authoritarian spark that usually burned in them was gone. His large, formerly imposing frame reflected his own crushed spirit, exacerbated by his slumping posture. Attempting to sit up in his bed but failing, he raised his hand and whispered, "Come here, son."

Panther obeyed and knelt next to the bed. Although he had been aware for several hours that his father would not survive the night, the reality of his impending death stirred up Panther's emotions to the point where he struggled to prevent himself from breaking into tears.

Sensing his son's grief, the elder Caroso reached down and stroked his shoulder. "Don't be ashamed to cry in front of me. I know this has all been very difficult for you; and I don't think what I'm going to tell you is going to make it any easier."

"What do you mean?" Panther asked, peering through the tears in his eyes to look at his father's aged face.

"Don't speak a word about this to anyone else, but I know that the Continental Empire is going to die with me tonight. I always told you that you would take my place when I passed, but for your own sake, I will not let it happen. As it is, I have already transferred my authority to General Gherlalach. The public will not be aware of this until tomorrow, but I doubt it will matter then. Our enemies are more numerous and more powerful than they have ever been before, but it is not them that will be the downfall of our empire."

A stab of grief shot through Panther's being. "Who will it be, then?"

"Our own people," the old panther replied. "They can no longer be trusted. The rebel forces' propaganda has crept into their ranks, deceiving them into believing that they would be better off without my leadership. They no longer seek the security, purpose, and power of the state – they want to trade it all for the squabbling mob that is democracy."

Panther bared his teeth. "How could they do that? After all you've done for them!"

"Perhaps I overstepped my boundaries as a leader of the people," his father replied. "But even if that is the case, I have no regrets. I only did what I needed to do. But it is useless now. My son, you need to leave this place. If you are captured by the rebels, they will kill you; and then our ancient family line will cease to exist. You are the last heir, and I cannot allow such a tragedy to take place."

Panther swallowed, then stood up. "I respect you, father. But I won't abandon my brothers or our cause, even if it means that I die in the process."

"Forget about everyone else! Your survival is our cause now!" his father roared.

The rage in the dictator's voice set Panther's fur on end, yet he forced himself to look into his eyes. "If the Empire falls tonight, I won't have any more reason to live. What you've taught me is all I know. Anything else won't compare. I'd rather die for what our family believed in than live in a world without it."

The aged panther's face softened, and his rage faded into melancholy. "Very well then. If that is the case, you need to head to the air base immediately. But before you leave, please – take this with you." With a great deal of effort, the dictator reached over the side of the bed to a nearby metal tray table and grasped a red object that Panther failed to recognize until his father held it out for him to take.

"Take the rose, Panther. If you live through tonight, this will always be there to remind you of me and the generations of Carosos that came before you. It was said in centuries past that all who saw this red rose met death. It's yours from now on. Now go – your brothers need you."

A tear slipped out of Panther's eye. Slowly, he pulled the flower out of his father's weakening hand and slipped its clipped stem into his coat pocket above his rank insignia. His voice trembled as he said, "Thank you, father." Then, he turned and walked towards the door, not looking back even after opening it.

Giving his eyes a quick wipe, he closed the hospital room door behind him and locked eyes with Latifa, whose face bore a sympathetic expression. "I could have told you that he had already put General Gherlalach in command, but I wanted you to hear it from him first," she explained, her voice soft with suppressed anguish.

Without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, Panther replied, "Thanks for not telling me."

The two walked back to the elevator, then rode it down to the base floor before exiting the hospital through the front door. Under the sand-colored overhang outside, the trio of vehicles still awaited them. In a barely controlled flurry of movement, the iguana in the central limousine's passenger seat bolted for the rear door and opened it for Panther and Latifa. Shutting the door after the two had buckled their seatbelts, the lizard leaped back into the passenger seat at the front of the car and motioned for the driver to start moving.

The city's air and space base stood less than five miles from the hospital, and it only took ten minutes to reach the main entry gate. Upon seeing the APCs and the dictator's personal limousine, the gate operator opened the gate for the trio of vehicles without forcing them to slow down. Inside the main gate, five unappealing buildings and a control tower buzzed with activity. Two of the five structures functioned as crew quarters, which were mostly unoccupied due to the need in the base's other areas. Two large hangars stood across from each other on the west side of the base's sprawling concrete surface, and scores of fighters sat in rows outside. Numerous pilots and small airport vehicles buzzed in and out of the airfield as Panther's entourage neared the oversized hangars where his unit stored their fighters. When the limousine stopped, he refused to wait for the iguana in the front seat to open the door for him and forced it open himself. Setting foot on the concrete pavement, he jogged towards the hangar closest to him and looked inside. A cursory glance revealed the six other members of his aerial wing, apart from Latifa and himself. All of them looked on edge, with concern and worry emanating from their movements and mannerisms.

As he stepped into the hangar, a gray and orange-furred island fox with a general's insignia stepped in front of him, wearing a uniform decorated with scores of pins and medals along with four gold stars on each of his shoulders. In a husky voice that belied his relatively short height, he said, "Caroso, I can't express how grateful I am that you're still able to put your duty first after what happened to your father."

"Thank you, sir," Panther replied.

"We put your flight gear in your fighter for you and prepped it for launch. Speaking of which, our radar says that five heavy rebel transports are on their way towards our location now. We're going to throw everything we've got at them. Those transports will be carrying most of the rebel ground forces, so we have to make sure we hit them before they can land. The rest of Monarch Flight is ready for launch, so get ready as quickly as possible." Panther turned towards his fighter, but the general grabbed his shoulder and added, "I wasn't sure if we could count on you, so I ordered your friend Commander Riewald to lead the fighter wing. Just for this once, follow his lead."

An expression of frustration crossed Panther's face. "Will do."

Knowing that the rest of his fighter wing was waiting on him, he jogged towards his parked fighter, positioned in the middle of the hangar floor between two similar vehicles. The fighter sported the Continental Empire's red-over-reflective silver color scheme. Blood red paint covered the craft's aft end, while its chrome-like wings and nose glistened in the hangar's artificial light. Built by the offworld Gaia Corporation, the Apollo interceptor tipped the scales as the most expensive and technologically advanced fighter in the Empire's air and space arsenal; and due to this, only the most experienced and skilled pilots could ever hope to use it.

Ducking under the Apollo's forward-swept wing, Panther reached for the ladder propped against the ship's hull and climbed into the open cockpit, where a blue, utilitarian bag awaited him in the pilot's seat. He looked up in time to see Latifa climb into the identical fighter next to his. Then, he grabbed the bag and climbed down the utility ladder before sprinting into the nearest available room to change into his flight clothes.

A hurried moment later, he raced back into the hangar and climbed into his cockpit, pulling on a headset that tied into the fighter's main interface and provided him with an advanced HUD system. Closing the canopy over himself, he opened his comms channel and set it to Monarch Flight's shared extension. To his right and left, the sounds of plasma-based powerplants reverberated through the air and shook the hangar itself. As he reached for the Apollo's ignition switch, the vulpine general's voice reached his ears through his headset.

"Attention Monarch Flight: for this operation, all squad callsigns will remain the same as usual except that Commander Riewald will be referred to as Monarch Leader instead of Commander Caroso, who is Monarch 1. The base's radar has indicated five heavy transport ships fifty miles outside Chivacha along with their fighter escorts. It is imperative that they be shot down before they can deploy their ground forces. Monarch Flight, your objective is to engage the enemy fighters and to protect our assault corvettes while they attack the heavy transports. Lazuli Strike Squadron is tasked with attacking any ground forces that the rebels manage to deploy. Unless the situation calls for it, your objectives are not to overlap."

With his instructions completed, the general ended his transmission. Glancing to his right, Panther locked eyes with Commander Riewald – a savage-looking golden eagle – who sat in the fighter next to him. The avian nodded back at him, then spoke into his headset. "Alright, Monarch Flight – let's get out there and show these hacks what we're made of. They and their mercenary 'friends' might have gotten this far, but they're not going to get past us tonight. We have the advantage in the sky, and I know from experience just how good this unit is. Let's tear it up out there. Follow my lead."

The whine of Riewald's interceptor grew louder as he eased it off the hangar floor and hovered through the opened doors ahead of Panther, Latifa, and the rest of the fighter wing, in that order. Maneuvering into the wide concrete avenue that separated Monarch Flight's hangar with the one across from it, Panther waited for Commander Riewald to launch. A second later, the exhaust from Riewald's main engine glowed white as he deactivated his VTOL system, switched to the main engines, and roared into the sky. Panther followed suit, preparing himself for the pummeling g-load that would have been enough to kill him if his fighter had not been equipped with a g-diffusor system. His fighter launched forward in response to his input, shoving him into his pilot's seat while the rest of Monarch Flight fell in line behind him.

Following Commander Riewald, the fighter wing ascended to 20,000 feet and fell into a 'V' formation with Riewald in the lead and Panther and Latifa flanking him. With the initial acceleration over with, Panther collected himself and glanced at the large radar screen that made up a substantial part of his dashboard interface. The seven other members of Monarch Flight appeared as blue arrows on his display, which lacked enemy targets for the time being. Nonetheless, he knew that it would not be long before it would be flooded with malignant red arrows intent on shooting him down.

Commander Riewald broke the momentary silence. "Monarch Flight, accelerate to 1,400 knots and strike at that speed. Stay in formation until after the first strike, then slow down and engage the enemy fighters at combat speed. They're already aware that we're in the air, so we can't risk allowing them to strike first."

Panther gripped his flight stick and matched Monarch Leader as he increased the output from his engines. The fighter wing gradually picked up speed until each of the fighters reached Riewald's velocity. Each of the squad's fighters was capable of more than double that speed in-atmosphere, but most of the Empire's pilots lacked the ability to fluidly control their movements with their engines wide open. Reaching forward, Panther adjusted the radar readout on his fighter's console to display a wider scope. On the top edge of the green map, five large red blobs lumbered towards his unit, predicted to reach them in under two minutes. Between the transports' radar signatures, more than thirty tiny arrows appeared on the screen. Even though Panther knew Monarch Flight was not the only airborne squadron to take part in the airborne skirmish, the number of enemy fighters still surprised him to the point of concern.

Selecting Latifa's comms channel, he asked the lioness, "Monarch 2, is it just me, or are there more enemy fighters than we expected?"

Latifa let out a harsh breath. "Dammit – yes. We've got support coming from Reaper Squadron, but their job is to protect the five corvettes that should be leaving the air base about now. Lazuli Squadron is going to be too busy with the ground forces – assuming we can't shoot down all of the transports – so we're more or less on our own up here."

"Still, we've had to deal with worse things before," Panther replied.

"True, but it still sucks."

Panther shook his head and switched his comms unit back to the unit's shared channel in time to hear Commander Riewald announce, "Thirty seconds and closing. The transports are coming into view. We don't have the firepower to attack them directly, so focus your fire on the support fighters and let the corvettes take care of the rest. We'll have five minutes to take care of the rebel escorts until they arrive." Pausing for a moment, he squinted his eyes and watched as the bulbous, ponderous transports came into view, along with the swarms of fighters that surrounded them. Then, Riewald ordered, "Monarch Flight, engage!"

At the speed of twenty-five miles per minute, Monarch Flight closed in on the transport unit in the blink of an eye. With the command to begin the attack, Panther felt the surge of adrenaline and tightened his grip on the flight stick. In seconds, the presence of his wingmates disappeared from his mind. The radio chatter coming from the other members of Monarch Flight registered in his ears as mindless gibberish. Locked in his own zone of intense focus, he accelerated towards the horde of enemy crafts and diverted his fighter's shields to the front. He held down the trigger on the top of his flight stick, charging a laser burst before releasing it into the swarm of enemy fighters. The burst exploded in a fiery burst, engulfing one of the rebel fighters and sending it to the desert sands below.

Tens of enemy fighters screamed past him as he sliced through their midst in the opposite direction. Following the first pass, he engaged his brake and looped the Apollo around for another strike. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a less experienced member of Monarch Flight be torn to pieces by a small squad of mercenary fighters allied with the rebels. The crippled silver and red fighter plummeted to the ground in a ball of fire without a sign of its pilot ejecting. As the fire spread across the entirety of the compact fighter, the pilot's screams filled Panther's ears through the comms unit.

"Monarch 7 is down!" Commander Riewald shouted.

In the span of three months in the deadly war against the rebel insurgents, Panther had lost numerous wingmen, including two whom he considered close friends of his. It saddened him to realize that at this point in time, the deaths of his comrades saddened him far less than they ever had before. A feeling of terror gripped him at the realization that he felt little grief towards Monarch 8's death – only anger towards his killers.

As much as he wanted to engage the mercenaries, he forced himself to focus on the fighters closest to him. His radar warned him about four rebel crafts closing in on him from behind, but he prevented himself from giving into his nerves. With one quick motion, he stomped on the two floor pedals that controlled the Apollo's roll and brake functions, pulling back hard on the flight stick at the same time. He sliced his speed in half, throwing himself into a small vertical loop that caused his flight interface to bark at him with 'excessive g-force' and 'stall' warnings. His head felt light, but he had performed the previous maneuver enough to know that he would be able to fight through it. As he expected, the rapid loop put him directly behind his pursuers. The four green fighters attempted to break formation around the tail end of one of the bulbous transports, but had no time to escape from him as he emptied a barrage of laser fire into the two fighters closest to him and shot them out of the sky.

He took a deep breath, but then felt a surge of panic shoot through him. Acting on reflex alone, he double-tapped his right pedal and rolled to the side the second that a speeding rebel fighter blazed through the airspace where he had just been. Laser bursts sprayed out of the enemy fighter's cannons, but instead of hitting him, they claimed another hapless rebel.

Without any other immediate threats in the area besides the unarmed transports, Panther opened his comms channel. "Monarch 1 here. Do you have any updates, Monarch Leader?"

"Monarch 4 and 7 are down. We've taken down twelve fighters in total, but the long-range radar at the base shows large numbers of enemy reinforcements on the way. Reaper Squadron and the corvette attack force from the base are inbound – ETA one minute and closing. Their job is to stick close to the corvettes and protect them from enemy fighter attacks. Ours is to keep them from getting there in the first place."

Panther gritted his teeth. In the distance ahead of him, he watched the ten assault corvettes enter the aerial battle over the desert. Their blocky, inelegant designs resembled oversized gunships, featuring long, swept wings that bristled with armaments designed specifically for assaulting large aerial vessels. Their armor lacked the density of the enemy transport ships; and although they could withstand more damage than the fighters could, they made for perfect targets for the rebel fighter corps.

"Attention Monarch Flight – Reaper Squadron has entered the combat area. Keep your distance from the enemy transports unless you want to get hit by friendly fire, because they're about to be lit up."

No sooner had he spoken than the formation of corvettes emptied the first stage of their weapons cache. Panther dove beneath the transports, glancing out of the top of his canopy in time to see two of the lumbering behemoths erupt into flame. Missile trails mixed with plasma and heavy laser fire flooded the skies. Numerous rebel fighters found themselves trapped in the onslaught and suffered the same fate as the doomed transports.

The instant that the transports sustained damage, the remaining three ships dropped altitude in an attempt at landing. Panther recognized that they had planned to put down closer to the city in order to decrease the time needed for their ground assault; but with two of their landing crafts billowing flames and racing towards the ground, the need to deploy their troops at any cost overrode any possibility of landing closer to Chivacha.

The four remaining members of Monarch Flight regrouped around Panther while the assault corvettes and their fighter escorts banked hard to the left for another pass on the descending transports. Amidst the chaos, Panther shot a quick glance at his radar and noticed two small dots closing in on the combat sector.

" _Two fighters? Did they break off from their main group?"_

A feeling of suspicion and concern prompted him to speak up. "Monarch Leader, we've got two bogies closing in on us from the southwest. I don't know why there are only two of them. All the other enemy reinforcements are coming from the east. This isn't making any sense."

Commander Riewald's voice reeked of cynicism. "Probably some freelancers looking to get in on the action. Move to engage the remaining enemy fighters from the original group, and ignore those two unless they become a threat. Reaper's escorts are holding their own. We just need to pick off a few extra to give them the upper hand. Stay in close formation and…"

A barrage of blue-colored laser fire rained down on the unit from behind. Two of Monarch's fighters suffered catastrophic damage in a span of three seconds, with one of them detonating on the spot from a fuel cell rupture.

Panther had the foresight to roll to his right to avoid one of the laser bursts, but his movement came at the cost of the fighter next to him. The two fighters from his radar monitor roared overhead and then banked in opposite directions. He knew all too well that both of them intended to strike again before the unit could disperse.

While Commander Riewald shouted, "Split up, but don't get too far apart or they'll pick you off one by one!" Panther realized that the only remaining Monarch fighters belonged to him, Latifa, and Riewald. Fear seldom had any effect on him, but as the two unidentified enemy fighters closed in on him and his crippled unit, he felt the sensation of terror – as if his blood had turned to ice water.

" _Who are these people? How did they do that?"_

He looked to his left at Latifa's interceptor, only to see one of the bogies closing in on her. Hoping that the other fighter would target Riewald instead of himself, he banked to the left in hopes of engaging Latifa's aggressor before he could strike. The enemy ship dove towards her from above with a flurry of laser fire, ripping through the lightweight interceptor's shielding in seconds. Panther's fingers turned cold as he clutched his flight stick and lined up his targeting reticle for a quick, desperate shot that he hoped would shake the enemy fighter off of Latifa.

At that moment, a nearby explosion shattered the air. A second later, the ear-piercing screams of Commaner Riewald filled Panther's ears, breaking his concentration. The realization that only he and Latifa remained caused him to hesitate for a fraction of a moment – a fraction of a moment too long.

Before he could blink, the red and black fighter ahead of him fired another shot into the back of Latifa's fighter. The lioness maneuvered wildly in an attempt at shaking him off, but the enemy pilot matched her every movement. With her shields depleted, Latifa attempted a desperate side roll, only for her quarry to fire a final bolt that shredded her doomed fighter's fuselage.

Panther's eyes widened. His breath quickened, and his mind entered a state of near-delirium. His fighter wing's comms channel turned to static. Riewald and Latifa's fighters plunged towards the ground, with neither of them making any attempt at ejecting. He looked out the right side of his fighter's canopy at the distant aerial battle in time to see two of Reaper's assault corvettes break into pieces after suffering heavy laser fire from rebel fighters. Worse yet, the three remaining transports all looked close to landing. Nothing seemed able to stop them.

" _My father was right. The Empire really is doomed."_

Nothing but anger motivated him now. The fighter responsible for shooting his wingmate down still loomed large in his sights. Baring his teeth, he emptied a hail of laser fire into the back of the unidentified craft. The target realized that he had made the error of letting his guard down and tried to roll out of the way, but he failed to prevent Panther from crippling his shields. A quick blue burst engulfed the fighter – the telltale sign that its shields had failed.

Panther could tell that the enemy pilot knew he stood no chance. The instant his shields dropped, he performed a wild inverted dive that would have caught a lesser pilot off guard, but not Panther. In turn, the feline rolled his fighter and pulled up on the flight stick, matching the damaged enemy ship. Locking his eyes onto the rear of the target like a vise, he lined up his sights and squeezed the trigger. Suddenly, the crippled enemy ship banked to the right and activated its brakes. Panther's kill shot clipped the fighter's upper rear wings but missed the vital components. Nonetheless, he knew that his target had no other cards to play.

The heavily damaged fighter lumbered away from the combat sector with both tail stabilizers reduced to jagged stubs of metal, but Panther had no intention of letting him escape. He lined up his sights again for a quick finishing shot, but then made the mistake of glancing at his radar.

The other enemy fighter was directly behind him.

He pulled the flight stick back to its limits and gunned the throttle, abandoning his pursuit of the crippled fighter as a flurry of blue lasers seared the air around him. He shook in his seat as four rapid-fire shots struck the rear of his interceptor. A baleful red warning light appeared on his shield gauge, warning him that only 40% of his shielding remained. For the first time in years, he felt forced to stare down death in the pilot's seat. Having become known as one of the Empire's top pilots, he subconsciously considered himself invincible, whether he chose to believe it or not. The peril of his situation instilled in him a fear that drove him to desperation. He knew that the Empire would fall. He knew that two of his closest associates were now dead at the hands of these unnamed freelancers – and he knew that even if he managed to take down the demon chasing him, he would still end up as a POW in his home city or a political refugee elsewhere.

" _Nothing matters anymore,"_ he mused. With the enemy fighter still pursuing him, he banked downwards to the right and cut his speed. The lone enemy sped past him, but Panther knew that it was only to allow him to regroup for a better attack angle. As he pulled out of his turn and leveled out, the rose that he had pinned to his flight suit fell out of his chest pocket and into his lap. For a moment, he stared wistfully at the flower – the symbol of his ancient family line that was about to end with him.

" _I can't let it end like this. If I die, I'm taking him down with me. Only a fool would try something like this."_

He knew his enemy intended to loop around and fall in behind him again, as attacking from the front would create too great of a risk for him. Sweat dripped from Panther's hand as he banked right and pulled into the tightest turn that his g-diffusors could handle. As he expected, the red, white, and black enemy fighter finished his own horizontal loop and began bearing down on him.

Panther pointed his nose directly at his enemy and rammed his throttle forward. The two fighters sped towards each other at breakneck speeds. He knew that the only way to avoid a fiery airborne wreck would be for either him or his enemy to roll out of the way. But he had no plans on dodging. As the ships came into gun range, Panther opened fire, scoring multiple hits on the front of the enigmatic fighter. To his horror, however, the red and black ship refused to roll out of his flight path and instead returned fire.

Panther's ears lit up with the sound of his interface warning him about his shields having dropped to 10%, but he ignored it and prepared himself for the possibility of his enemy being insane enough to continue flying straight at him. He contemplated rolling to his right, but the reality that he could finish off his adversary and die honorably convinced him to shun the thought. At the last possible second, the red and black fighter rolled onto its side and streaked past Panther's interceptor, passing closely enough for him to catch the briefest of glances at the dark gray score marks on the underside of the fighter's black fuselage.

Wasting no time, Panther banked to the left and activated his ship's target tracking system, designed specifically for advanced aerial engagements. The enemy fighter broke off to the right in hopes of completing a loop that would allow him to strike at the right side of Panther's ship.

He knew to expect it. Hoping to defy his opponent's expectations, he dove, banked right, and then pulled into a hard ascending loop to his left. The enemy fighter raced past him from below, firing multiple shots at the point where Panther had been a mere second earlier. With his fighter inverted, Panther closed the loop behind the black and red vessel and fired off three shots before his enemy could move to evade. All three shots hit home, but his shields remained functional.

Panther's foe gave him no more chances to damage his ship. He banked left and accelerated at a rate that suggested the presence of experimental technology in his fighter. Panther followed suit, but he realized that his opponent possessed better equipment than he did. Nevertheless, his realization gave him a boost in morale as it dawned on him that he had managed to hold his own against a highly skilled ace with a quicker and more maneuverable fighter. The red and black fighter seemed to pull harder into the left bank as his speed increased, and Panther began to feel his g-diffusor system reaching its limits of g-force mitigation while his targeting system struggled to maintain a lock on the target. He knew that the enemy pilot wanted to bait him into a maneuver that would either cause him to black out or otherwise impair his skill in the pilot's seat. At the same time, he wondered if his enemy would be able to take much more of his own maneuver.

His internal question suddenly answered itself when the red fighter rolled to the right and dove towards the desert below. With the entirety of his mental effort focused on keeping enough blood in his upper body to prevent himself from fainting, Panther missed the maneuver and broke his lock on the enemy. Adrenaline alone kept his mind in place now. Once again, he rolled his fighter and dove towards the ground in pursuit of the lone freelancer. When his tracking system re-obtained a lock on the enemy fighter, Panther struggled to believe the rate of his descent and his current altitude.

He wondered if the enemy pilot had given in and decided to flee from him. He knew that it would have been just as easy for the mercenary to cut his throttle and loop behind him when he failed to pick up his sudden right aileron roll/dive combination. Panther felt a sensation of satisfaction and relief creeping up on him, but it failed to overcome his suspicion about his enemy's actions. A small part of him wondered if he was somehow being tested by this unnamed pilot who had already shot down several of his wingmen.

Above all, though, he knew that he could not allow his enemy to escape. With his engines pushed to their limits, he began to close the gap between him and the advanced fighter as the desert grew larger and larger through his canopy. His altitude detector struggled to keep up with the rate of his almost vertical descent that clocked in at nearly 2,800 feet every second. His interface screamed at him to pull up, but with his enemy coming into the range of his laser cannons, he continued his maniacal descent.

With only three thousand feet separating the two ships from the ground, the red and black fighter pulled up at an absurd speed that caused Panther to replace advanced technology with witchcraft as the only explanation for the uncanny ship's ability to out-maneuver him. The freelancer soared over the tops of the sand dunes with mere feet separating the bottom of his fighter from certain death.

Then and there, Panther realized that he could not pull up quickly enough to avoid crashing into the desert. He pulled his throttle back as far as it would go and activated his in-flight emergency air brake in one motion, then yanked the flight stick back and hoped for a miracle. The fighter responded without hesitation, but the numerous warning lights and alarms inside the cockpit broadcasted the reality that nothing he did would be enough to prevent a crash. The immense force of braking from the Apollo's top speed and pulling up at the same time exceeded the limits of the ship's g-diffusors. As his fighter reached an angle parallel with the ground, Panther felt himself beginning to black out in spite of his best efforts.

Struggling to maintain consciousness, he stared out of the canopy glass and panicked. A massive sand dune loomed ahead of him at a distance far too close to avoid. He bit his lip and kept the flight stick pulled back, but when his eyes managed to pick out the textured ridges of the dune, he closed his eyes and prepared for impact.

A second later, the back of his fighter slammed into the top of the sand dune. The impact forced the craft out of his control completely and sent it into a rapid dive. More terrified than he had been in years, he neglected to think about the possibility of ejecting from his fighter. He forced his eyes shut as the interceptor's nose dug into the sand on the back side of the dune and violently lurched four times before coming to a stop at the base of another towering sand dune.

During the final shock, Panther felt a searing pain shoot through his leg. Opening his eyes, he cringed when he noticed that his footwell had collapsed around his left leg. He unclipped his flight harness and pressed the button to open his canopy, but in spite of his best efforts to push himself out of his seat, his left leg remained stuck. The thought of his fighter's engines entered his mind and drove him into a frenzy. He knew that the Empire's interceptors often struggled with fuel cell leaks that led to catastrophic explosions when damaged; and he feared that he only had seconds to escape from his cockpit before his fighter's fuel cell went critical. He pushed himself up again, only for a shard of metal to dig into his leg in the process.

To his dismay, he realized that his only hope of escaping his fighter lay in someone else's hands. But the rest of his unit had suffered fates worse than his, and the rest of the Empire's forces had their hands tied with the landing insurrectionist forces. Then, his situation went from bad to worse. With his cockpit opened, he heard the sound of a high-powered fighter engine howling nearby. A moment later, the red and black fighter responsible for several of his wingmates' deaths hovered over his downed interceptor and touched down on the desert sands thirty feet away from him.

Panther watched as the fighter's canopy opened. A tall, gray-furred lupine climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the sand, wearing a set of red combat armor overtop of a black flight suit. A blue cybernetic patch covered his right eye, and its design suggested that it functioned as a fully-fledged replacement eye as opposed to a simple flight aid. He kept an old-fashioned handgun on his waist, but he made no attempt to reach for it as he walked towards Panther.

Unable to move, Panther grimaced as the wolf approached his fighter and then climbed onto its severed wing, half-buried in the sand. He fully expected the ruffian to gloat over him and then shoot him between the eyes, but part of him wondered why the lupine had bothered to the land his fighter in the middle of a war zone when his defeated enemy posed no threat to him. As he locked eyes with the enemy pilot, the stress, anguish, and anger of the past several hours converged on him at once. Enraged, he yelled, "What do you want? Are you just here to mock me?"

The wolf held his peace until the force of Panther's words dispersed. Then, he replied, "If I wanted to mock you, I would have circled around and shot you." His voice possessed a rough twang reminiscent of a country accent, although elements of refinement still managed to seep through his tough persona.

"Well, what do you want with me? Who are you, anyway?"

The wolf cleared his throat. "My name's Wolf. Yeah, I know – real creative name. Don't blame me for it, though. If I recall, yours isn't too brilliant, either."

Panther glared at him with a suspicious, hateful gaze.

"What? You don't think I know who you are?" Wolf replied. "I've had my eye on you for a while now, to tell you the truth."

"So I made it onto your hit list, huh? I figured as much," Panther stated, putting as much gall behind his words as possible.

"I heard about your skill in the pilot's seat and had to find out how good you really were. Most pilots I've faced don't measure up to the stories that surround them. You, on the other hand…you're pretty damn impressive."

Panther showed his teeth. "That's easy for you to say after shooting me down. I still think you're just here to gloat."

Wolf glanced inside the cockpit and noticed Panther's wedged, bleeding leg. "I already told you that I'm not here for that. I'm here to make you an offer."

Panther narrowed his eyes.

"You see, I'm working on putting together a top-level unit from the ground up," Wolf explained. "I've had loyalty issues and problems with deadweights on my team before, so I've decided to start over. I don't have much money to burn right now, but if you take me up on my offer, I'll give you a 400,000 credit bonus for joining Star Wolf."

Panther's nostrils flared. "You think I care about the money, you mercenary scum? Listen – I will never have anything to do with you or your classless rabble. I know how you all are. You'd sell out everyone important to you for a few extra credits. You have no ideals. You have no morals. You have no purpose but to kill for the highest bidder. I swear that I will _never_ have anything to do with that!"

As he gave his response, Wolf's face seemed to soften. "Listen, cub. Before you throw out my offer, I think you ought to know that I was a lot like you at one point. You've probably never heard of it, but there was this thing called the Great Lylat War; and I was the leader of Venom's best fighter unit. Technically, we were still mercenaries; but all of us believed in Venom's cause until after the war ended and we lost to the Cornerians. After that, I realized that my ideals betrayed me. The leader of Venom was really a crazed, power-mad tyrant who took advantage of me because of my hatred for the Cornerians. The point is that your ideals can blind you if you're not careful."

He paused, then added, "If it helps you, we definitely have standards in Star Wolf. Why else do you think I'd want to rebuild my operation when it was working before? You're also right about most mercenaries being common scum, but we aren't going to be part of that. Not only that, but you might want to think about your own morals before you start complaining about ours. For what it's worth, your family's regime is one of the cruelest I've ever seen."

Wolf's words stung Panther, but he felt forced to admit that many of his father's actions towards his own people had been anything but charitable. Lost in his thoughts, he held his tongue and listened as Wolf continued, "I hate to break it to you, but you're not going to have anywhere to go in a few hours. When the rebels take that city, you might as well have a target painted on your back. Heck, if they find you, they'll probably go out of their way to think of the most creative way to kill you. Do you really want that for yourself?"

"It's what my ancestors would have done."

"Listen pal," Wolf scoffed. "This isn't the feudal age anymore. Outside of your own country, no one cares about your family lineage past two generations. And as it would happen, the rebels say that the last two emperors were the most tyrannical dictators in their history. If anything, you're going to want to keep your family history to yourself."

Another accurate jab at his predecessors caused Panther to grimace. He hated the wolf for bringing up the topic of his father and grandfather's tyrannical behavior, but he knew his hatred stemmed from the truth of Wolf's statements. For a moment, his eyes wandered away from Wolf towards the crumpled floorboard of his fighter, where his father's red rose lay. Despite the ferocity of the crash, each of its petals still remained intact.

" _Perhaps this…mercenary…is right. He's not going to help me out of here unless I join his cause; and if I don't, he'll leave me for the insurrectionists to find. Am I stupid for refusing my only chance at getting out of here alive? If they kill me, my family line dies with me."_

He glanced at the rose again.

" _Maybe this is a chance to start over and make a new name for myself. Wolf is clearly not from this system, and if I went with him, no one would have to know where I came from or who I was related to. Not like they would care."_

From behind him, the sound of a distant explosion reached his ears. Craning his neck to look for the source of the noise, he watched the fiery plume of a small bomb ascend over his home city. At that moment, he felt his spirit give up hope completely. His worst fears had come to fruition, and his only option not resulting in certain death rested with the lupine mercenary standing next to him.

While Panther brooded over the loss of everything that mattered to him, Wolf said, "I'm not just giving you the option to join my team because I feel bad for you. I'm doing it because I want you on my side. Look, we can stay here for hours until you finally wizen up, because I'm not taking 'no' for an answer. Besides, there's nothing left for you here. What do you have to lose?"

" _Nothing,"_ Panther whispered, avoiding eye contact with Wolf. For the third time, his eyes wandered to the rose between his feet. Reaching down, he picked up the flower and placed it back in his chest pocket. Then, he stared into Wolf's good eye and growled, "Don't make me regret joining you."

Wolf chuckled, then clapped him on the shoulder. "I don't think you'll have anything to worry about. Hold still while I get my toolkit."


End file.
